The next hour is a blur. Starling refuses to release me, even as the police take her statement and she tells them how he dragged her into his bedroom and attempted to rape her using the party noise to cover the sounds of her screams.

The moment I tell them who I am, the police barely question why Chase Lawrence’s face looks like hamburger meat. With Starling’s statement, the bruise on her cheek from where he hit her and the video from the camera he’d set up to record him raping my girl, it’s a pretty open and shut case for the cops who haul him away handcuffed to the stretcher in the back of an ambulance.

Sammy, Evan, Clay and Hunter are all standing around us, watching as Starling clings to me. “Let’s go home,” I whisper into her neck, supporting her weight with my hands beneath her ass as I stand up and carry her out of the now-empty house.

The others follow us out, but no one speaks as we make our way back to the carts. I climb into ours with Evan and Hunter, While Clay gets into Sammy’s with her.

“Bring her back to ours, she can stay the night in case Starling needs her,” I tell Clay, who nods.

No one speaks as we drive back to the house until I unlock the front door and step inside. “Little bird, do you want Sammy to help you get cleaned up?” I ask.

“No,” Starling says, her face buried in my shoulder.

“Will you let me help you?” I ask quietly.

I feel rather than see her nod, glancing at the others before I slowly climb the stairs to the third floor. Pushing the door open to my room, I carry her straight into the bathroom and turn on the shower.

“I need to put you down so you can shower, okay?”

“No, don’t leave me,” she begs.

“I’ll stay in here if that’s what you want.”

“Get in with me.”

Nodding, I lower her to the floor and carefully help her remove her clothes. “Get rid of them, I never want to see them again,” she says, her lower lip trembling.

My own clothes are covered in blood so I quickly strip and then throw both her and my clothes onto the landing to deal with later, before rushing back to her.

She’s still standing where I left her, her arms wrapped around her naked breasts, her eyes closed.

“What do you need me to do?” I ask, completely at a loss as to how to make this better.

“Help me wash his touch off.”

Nodding, I slowly approach her, carefully rubbing my thumb over the darkening bruise on her cheek. I expect her to flinch, but instead she leans into my touch, a silent sob breaking from her lips.

Lifting her, I help her beneath the water and between us, we wash her skin, until she’s pink and her sobs have changed into soft tremors. Once she’s clean, I grab a cloth and get all of the blood from me, then turn off the shower and grab a towel for her, wrapping it around her as I lift her out, placing her on the floor.